Discussion Thread: Successful Aging

If smoking, heavy drinking, physical inactivity, depression, social isolation, and fair or poor perceived health contribute to disability in some way as you age (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2018), then non-government entities, such as friends, family, and church, need to address these concerns. However, non-government entities need to first know and understand their group and any possible socioeconomic factors that may be present, so they are able to offer the appropriate intervention and prevention programs (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2018). For example, a church offering Christian-based help to a group of Muslims will not be fruitful. Once the socioeconomic factors of the group are realized, then non-government entities can then begin to offer help.

One such example of help a non-government entity might offer is group physical activities. This can be weekly, or more often, physical activities in a group setting, such as playing a sport, or a less demanding activity such as a light walk or hike, in a group environment. This helps ensure older adults maintain good health and functionality, while also preventing depression and social isolation. This can be offered through a non-profit organization, a church, or even just a group of friends and/or family getting together often and doing physical activities together.

Another way a non-government entity, especially family or friends, can help older adults maintain good health and functionality is through constant gracious and positive communication and conversation. Scripture says, “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” (English Standard Version Bible,  2001, Proverbs 16:24). Gracious conversation is uplifting both spiritually and physically. These conversations can also be used to encourage the older adult to maintain a healthy lifestyle, stay active, and keep up with regular doctor visits. The greatest advantage of constant and gracious conversation between friends and family is that socioeconomic factors should pose little or no issues.

References

Cavanaugh, J. C., & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2018). Adult development and aging. Cengage Learning.

English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV Online. https://esv.literalword.com/

Examine Adult-Emergent Disorders

 

 

Week 2 – Assignment: Examine Adult-Emergent Disorders

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This week’s reading material focuses on assessment, the second step in the Planned Change Process. For this assignment, you will apply both the assessment and diagnostic skills discussed in this week’s material as well as your knowledge of theories – those of human behavior and the social environment, person-in-environment, or other multidisciplinary frameworks- to consider the process of assessment. Assessment is an ongoing process based on information gained in a variety of different ways. This assignment introduces some of the more common ways of getting assessment data and determining a diagnosis when required. 1) Choose one of the following primary adult emergent disorders: Anxiety; Substance          Abuse; Mood disorders(especially depression or bipolar disorder). 2) Review the DSM V criteria for the disorder you chose 3) In a written response, address each of the following prompts: · Based on the DSM V criteria for the disorder, what questions would you ask an individual you suspect suffered from that disorder? Would the client be the only source of assessment information or would you ask the client’s permission to interview other people in her life? If so, who would you want to interview and why? If you choose to use the client as your only source of information, why? · Choose one of the primary theoretical perspectives introduced in Human Behavior and the Social Environment (systems, person-in-environment, behavioral, or cognitive) to use as a basis for a second set of questions for the client. List at least eight questions that apply the specific theory to inform your assessment. · There are a variety of client self-screening tools for these adult emergent disorders. Find at least one for your chosen disorder. Describe how you would introduce it to the client and how you would use the results of the screening tool in your assessment. · Find at least three scholarly journal articles that report empirical research on this disorder. What does this evidence suggest are the most effective ways of assessing this particular disorder? Support your assignment with at least three scholarly resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources, including seminal articles, may be included. Length: 5-7 pages, not including title and reference pages Your assignment should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the Course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Upload your document, and then click the Submit to Dropbox button.

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Chapter 8 A Values-Based, Multicultural Approach to Career Counseling and Advocacy

Things to Remember

The process and techniques used in a culturally sensitive approach to career counseling

 

The cultural values of the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States

 

The advocacy process and the risks involved

 

That religious values may influence the career choice making process

 

In a sense, this entire book to this point has been to a large extent about values and multiculturalism. Specifically, in Chapter 2 I outlined how professional organizations have established ethical prohibitions against not taking race, ethnicity, and culture into consideration in counseling and psychological practice. In the discussions about each of the theories, I have included suggested multicultural adaptations, both in the theories themselves and in their applications. I have also pointed out that Holland (1997) theorized that his six personality types include both interests and values, that TWA (Dawis, 2002) and its adaptation on O*NET place values at the center of the theory and its applications, and that Super not only saw values as important in career development, but he and Nevill produced the Values Scale (Super & Nevill, 1996) to help measure work values. However, not one of the aforementioned theories or its application includes cultural values, in spite of evidence that suggests that they are an important variable in the career development of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Latina individuals and groups (Fouad & Kantamneni, 2013).

 

In the years leading up to my initial statement about the importance of cultural values in career development and counseling, I read and rejected several ideas about how best to tackle the issue. I happened to be involved with a report of a group of English consultants who helped an African government design a health care intervention that failed miserably. The now-forgotten authors concluded that the first step in their process should have been to assess the values of the people who were to be helped and only then to design the intervention. The report of the failed consultation and the extensive work of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development on the need for cultural competence oriented my thinking to differences and similarities in cultural values.

 

In 1988, I embarked on a crash course in work and human values by reading literally dozens of research articles about values. Some of those articles discussed the differences in values in various cultures, including the impact those values had on the decision-making process, work satisfaction, and so forth. I also discovered that some people in the field of communications had focused on variations of communication styles based on differences in cultural values. This chapter is the culmination of a long process of discovery aimed at ascertaining how effective, sensitive career counseling can be offered in a cross-cultural context.

 

In Chapter 1, I cited Blustein and his colleagues (Blustein, McWhirter, & Perry, 2005), who had called for a change in the paradigms that guide the work of career development specialists, partially because of its cultural roots in Eurocentric thinking and partially because the current models do not include advocacy for racial, cultural, ethnic, and sexual minorities. In this chapter, a multicultural approach to career counseling is presented, based largely on my (2002) values-based theory and its updates in this book. The objective of this presentation is to provide a detailed, comprehensive approach to career counseling, defined as a process aimed at facilitating career development and one that may involve choosing, entering, adjusting to, or advancing in a career. Along with Brooks (Brown & Brooks, 1991), I defined career problems as undecidedness growing out of too little information; indecisiveness growing out of choice anxiety; unsatisfactory work performance; incongruence between the person and the work role; and incongruence between the work roles and other life roles, such as family or leisure.

 

I want to point out that the approach discussed here does not rule out borrowing ideas from other theories. For example, I often use Bandura’s ideas about self-efficacy and appraisals to help my clients understand their motivation or, more likely, their lack of motivation. This presentation is followed by a section focused on helping students and others build their own approaches to career counseling.

 

Implicit in many discussions on multiculturalism, and its extension to counseling, is the message that white counselors need to learn about the cultures of ethnic and racial minorities, persons who are disabled, and persons who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered and apply this knowledge to counseling. Consider the very real possibility of a lesbian counselor entering her office one day to find a white, Christian male who believes that homosexuality is a sin and freely expresses that view with everyone. One possibility is for the counselor to refer the client to another professional if she finds his views so repugnant that she cannot maintain her objectivity. The other is to try to understand his worldview, develop a working relationship with him, and proceed to help him with his career problem. The point here is a simple one: In a diverse culture such as ours, all counselors, regardless of race, ethnicity, or worldview, need a multicultural approach to career counseling.

 

As was illustrated in earlier chapters, the mechanics of career counseling, including approaches to the relationship and assessment, vary based on the theory being applied. Gysbers, Heppner, and Johnston (2003) developed a taxonomy of tasks that occur within career counseling simultaneously with the process of developing a working alliance. These tasks include identifying the presenting problem; structuring the counseling relationship; developing a counselor–client bond; gathering information about the client, including information about personal and contextual restraints; goal setting; intervention selection; action taking; and evaluation of outcomes. As will be shown later, the multicultural counseling model outlined in this chapter accepts most of these ideas regarding the structure of career counseling with minor changes.

 

Foundation of the Values-Based Approach

There are three aspects of culture. Universal dimension refers to the similarities among all groups. General cultural dimension refers to the characteristics of a particular group and typically refers to ethnicity, the group’s common history, values, language, customs, religion, and politics. There are more than 200 national entities and 5,000 languages in the world. These broad groups can be broken down into countless subgroups. It is impossible for career counselors to study all of the cultures and subcultures of the world, although it is possible for counselors in the United States to learn about what are termed the cultural generalizations of the major cultural groups in this country. The third aspect of culture is the personal dimension, which is reflected in the individual’s worldview and is based on the extent to which the general cultural values and worldview have been adopted by the individual. The process by which this occurs is called enculturation, and the result is racial/ethnic identity development, a continuous process that results in a worldview.

 

An individual’s worldview is the basis for his or her perception of reality (Ivey, D’Andrea, Ivey, & Simek-Morgan, 2009). Cultural generalization—that is, the assumption that the individual’s characteristics resemble those of the broader group—is stereotyping and must be avoided (Ho, 1995). Skin color, dress, ethnicity, religious beliefs, customs, or traditions honored are not proxies for personal culture.

 

As was discussed in Chapter 6, there are two broad philosophical bases for our theories and approaches: logical positivism and postmodernism. Ivey and his colleagues (2009) adopted a postmodern underpinning for their general approach to multicultural counseling, because it accommodates a “multiplicity of points of views” (p. 7). In fact, postmodernism accommodates an infinite number of points of view, because each person is perceived as having a unique worldview. Not surprisingly, given the relative perspective of postmodernism, there are no guiding truths, because truth is unknowable. Because there are no guiding truths, values are situational, not universal. It was this valueless perspective that led Prilleltensky (1997) to reject postmodernism as a philosophical basis for the practice of psychology.

 

The assertion here is that career counseling should proceed based on the client’s worldview, which is primarily based on the client’s cultural values unless those value collide with the laws of the dominant culture. If advocacy is incorporated into the career counseling process, then it should also be based on the client’s values. However, career counselors may also engage in advocacy aimed at legislative, community, and/or organizational change outside of the career counseling process based on their own values system.

 

Recently, I was confronted with a situation in which a young Chinese American high school student was being kept out of school to work in the family restaurant. Her parents believed that their action was perfectly congruent with their worldview, but their behavior was in conflict with the laws of the state of North Carolina. Career counseling cannot be a value-free enterprise. For example, if I take the relativity perspective on values in postmodern approaches into a career counseling session with an unacculturated American Indian male and help him build a career plan based on his worldview, then the plan must be implemented in a culture dominated by a totally different worldview. I may advocate for the client with prospective employers, but I may also find myself interpreting the employer’s values and helping the client continue to prize his own views while adapting to those in the workplace so that he can find meaningful employment.

By now, you have identified and done some literature search on your Module 1 Session Long Project (SLP) topic/health behavior and target population. In short, you have assessed the need for a program or intervention to address the health behavior you previously identified.

For Module 2 SLP, you will again conduct a literature search utilizing peer-reviewed journal articles, books, professional organization articles, etc., to help you identify evidence-based strategies to best address the health behavior in your target population and create a program/intervention plan.

(3 pages in length) summarizing your findings on evidence-based strategies and a workplan to address the health behavior. A workplan sample can be found at https://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Publications/Cancer/nbccedp/training/workplans/introduction.htm

The following items will be assessed in particular:

1. Using the same topic you have chosen from Module 1 SLP, develop a program goal and at least two objectives (1 learning objective and 1 behavioral objective) for your target population. Your objectives must be specific, measureable, achievable, realistic, and time-phased (SMART). Make sure that you have read the required readings on SMART objectives before developing your goal and objectives.
2. Based on your literature search, provide a summary of evidence-based strategies that have been shown effective in promoting or reducing the behavior in your target population.
3. Identify two evidence-based strategies that you will use to implement your program or intervention. Provide an explanation why you have chosen these strategies and defend your choices.
4. For now, include a workplan table with your goals, objectives, and activities/strategies. NOTE: Other parts of the workplan such as the data measurement tools, timeframe, responsible person, and measures of success will be completed in the next module SLP.

he most known issue with psychology and the law is that you are not allowed to breach your clients’ confidentiality. Confidentiality is the primary ethical obligation that psychologists must abide by in their practice. If needed, you are allowed to ask the client to sign a release of confidentiality paper that would give you to express what your client has discussed in sessions. There is an ethical concern about signing the waiver; how are we to know if the client is in suitable head space to give consent? As their doctor, you are supposed to protect them and their rights. If the client trusts you and asks for them to sign, they may believe you will still defend them if needed. However, when that waiver is signed, it is no longer in the psychologist’s hands; they must legally answer any questions they are asked.

APA standard 3:10 (c) states that if there is a court order for the doctor to testify, they must fully inform the client, “including whether the services are court ordered or mandated and any limits of confidentiality, before proceeding(APA,2002).”

Keeping what is revealed during a session private and confidential allows the patient to feel they are in a safe space to discuss their feelings. Psychologists need to remember how those notes can be subpoenaed at any point when taking notes during a session, so always keep notes to a minimum.

Reply 8-1 MG (250 words with 1 reference)

Some ethical issues that might arise between psychology and the legal system would be confidentiality and true informed consent. Because psychologists often see people who are in altered or vulnerable states, they might not be able to truly give informed consent to disclosing information to the legal system. If the patient does not understand the full extent of disclosing information but signs it out of fear or anxiety, there would be some questioning of if that is true informed consent. If the legal system is in a rush to get this information or the documents are not adequately explained, the patient might feel forced to sign the documents without knowing the who, what, when, where, and whys of them forfeiting their privacy rights. (Kress, 2013).

Confidentiality is one of the ethical obligations that psychologists must abide by in their practice. Keeping what is discussed private and confidential not only builds trust between the patient and the professional, but it also keeps the patient safe as they talk about raw feelings and emotions in safe spaces. If there were to be a break in the confidentiality between the two parties, it can do more damage and cause some trust issues within the patient, which could hurt or stop their treatment plan’s success. The psychologist does have an obligation to protect the patient’s privacy rights, but if the patient signs the disclosure documentation, there isn’t anything the psychologist can do. The legal system’s main goal isn’t to protect the privacy right’s of the patient, but it is the professional’s obligation to. This can cause an issue if the patient does not want to sign the disclosure or if they sign it during a state where they do not understand fully the right’s they are giving up.

REPLY 8-2 WC (250 words with 1 reference)

Defining insanity will differ from country to country and is based on mental disorders and behaviors. If someone is determined to be insane after committing a crime, they most likely will not be responsible for their actions (Richie et al., 2014). However, not all mental illnesses will fall under the umbrella of insanity. Insanity would include a mental disorder that has reached a point where the person cannot make decisions based on rationale or logic and impedes their ability to determine right from wrong. They do not understand their actions and did not commit the crime with the intent to commit a crime. If someone is mentally ill but not considered insane, regret may be present as they understood that what they did was wrong and there will be consequences. Furguson & Olgoff (2011) explain “The idea that one is not responsible for one’s actions when the actions are the product of mental illness, such that they cannot appreciate the nature of their actions, has in one form or another been in existence for centuries” (p. 79).